In a recent interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, Margaret Qualley said it took “a year” for her skin to recover from the irritation caused by the face prosthetics used in “The Substance.” The damage was so bad that director Coralie Fargeat had to frame out her face in certain shots.
“At the end, when they’re shooting up my skirt in the beginning credits, and it’s like the palm trees all around and they have all these long lenses from the bottom, that’s just because my face was so fucked up,” Qualley said. “They couldn’t shoot my face anymore.”
The acne from the prosthetics lasted long after “The Substance” wrapped and persisted as she began shooting her next film, “Kinds of Kindness,” in which she played four characters: Vivian, Martha, Rebecca and Ruth. Luckily, the acne played to her benefit in the Yorgos Lanthimos drama.
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“So, you know the character that has all that acne? That was just my acne from the prosthetics,” Qualley said. “And I was like, ‘Oh this is kind of perfect. I’m playing all these different characters. For one of them, we’ll use all my crazy prosthetic acne.’ It took me probably a year to recover physically from all of it.”
“The Substance” has emerged as a surprise contender during this year’s award season considering horror typically doesn’t score well among voters. Demi Moore took home her first Golden Globe this year for her leading take in “The Substance,” which follows an aging TV star who uses a mysterious miracle drug to create a younger, more marketable version of herself.